Keeping Mum

Keeping Mum

Saturday 3 December 2005 19.04 EST
First published on Saturday 3 December 2005 19.04 EST

Keeping Mum has no sense of life, ongoing or otherwise. It's a 'school of Richard Curtis' black comedy, with Rowan Atkinson reprising his bumbling vicar from Four Weddings. As his unfaithful wife, Kristin Scott Thomas swears like a trooper in a Dibley-like village, where their son is bullied and their 17-year-old daughter romps promiscuously. Into this troubled family comes housekeeper Grace, a Nanny McPhee figure with missionary intent (Maggie Smith).

Recently released after serving 43 years for carving up her husband and his mistress, she transforms their lives, but leaves a trail of bodies in her psychopathic wake. The movie is laboured and staggeringly unfunny. Most of the cast founder, desperately trying to keep their heads above water. But Patrick Swayze, as a lecherous, voyeuristic golf pro, is a goner from his first appearance in an ill-written, under-directed role. He cannot look back on this sojourn on the Isle of Man with much pleasure.